MORE than 300 people have signed a petition in opposition to proposed development at Longham and Hampreston.

Hundreds of concerned residents packed St Mary's Church Hall, Ferndown, earlier this month, to discuss plans to earmark land for up to 2,000 new homes, which is part of the Christchurch and East Dorset District Council's (EDDC) local plan review.

This document, still in its early stages, is basically a blueprint outlining where preferred future development should take place in the district.

It was standing room only at the meeting as topics such as flood risk, new infrastructure, environmental impact of development, greenbelt erosion and special character areas came under the spotlight.

Now a petition, which was circulated at the meeting and opposes new housing outlined in the review, is set to be handed in to EDDC.

During the meeting residents expressed worries about how new homes would exacerbate the traffic problems, they say, affect the area's road network daily.

One resident said: "Why cannot all of the traffic jams be sorted out before we consider any more new development?

"It seems we are going about this the wrong way around."

Last week the Echo reported that Dorset County Council (DCC) officials said they were in the "early stages" of considering options for a new road bridge, to the east of Longham.

DCC service director for environment, infrastructure and economy, Matthew Piles, said: "We are aware of the limitations of our network and have consistently lobbied government for a fairer share of transport funding.

"We are currently working with highways colleagues at Bournemouth Borough Council and the Borough of Poole on a study of the A348 Ringwood Road and A3049 Wallisdown Road corridor to provide evidence to support our case for improvements.

"This study will look at current traffic levels and use traffic modelling to forecast the impact of new housing development on this corridor.

"Without pre-empting the outcomes of the study, Longham Bridge is likely to be identified as a constraint on the network, which is why we are in the early stages of considering options for a new bridge to form a straighter link to the east of the existing bridge."